OBITUARY Guitarist Says He Turned Down Offer To Join ANDREW W.K.'s Band

Exclaim.ca‘s Aggressive Tendencies recently conducted an interview with guitarist Trevor Peres of Florida death metal veterans OBITUARY. You can watch the full, four-part interview below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On OBITUARY‘s 1998 to 2004 hiatus:

Trevor: “[We went on hiatus] mainly because we were getting older. We had been doing that since we were teenagers, basically, playing in a band, touring and making albums. John [Tardy, vocals] got married and stuff like that started happening. We were, like, ‘Maybe we should just be normal, get working jobs, start having children.’ Then that started happening. We did that and after about six years of it, we were like ‘I think it’s time to go back to being abnormal and being in a band again.’ We got back together 2004-ish, or 2003, really, I think. We started to get back together in 2004. 2005 is when ‘Frozen’ came out.”

On OBITUARY‘s connection to party rocker Andrew W.K.:

Trevor: “Before it all started, Andrew W.K., he was getting signed to Island Records. The guy who was managing him, this guy named Trevor Silmser, he was from Brandon, where I’m from, it’s where we’re all from, but Ken [Andrews, lead guitar] is from Orlando. I was living in Nashville, and out of the blue he just calls me. It’s when OBITUARY wasn’t together anymore. I think it was around 2000. I was doing CATASTROPHIC, which just put out an album in 2000 or 2001, this guy Trevor calls me out of the blue and I hadn’t talked to him in years. He said, ‘There is this guy that Island/Def Jam is dumping all kind of money into. He loves OBITUARY and he wants you to play on his project.’ So he sent me a bunch of demos and stuff. I listened to it and I really wasn’t interested, plus I was doing CATASTROPHIC, I was touring so I didn’t do it. I said, ‘Nah, I’m not really into it.’ Donald [Tardy, drums], he wasn’t doing anything at the time, so I turned him on to Donald. I said ‘Hey, call Donald. Maybe he’ll be into it.’ Then Donald jumped in and then it took off from there.”

On the issues behind OBITUARY‘s 2013 Kickstarter campaign:

Trevor: “We were going to make our own label. The whole point was that we were going to put this out [2014’s ‘Inked In Blood’] on our own. When it was said and done, we raised $60,000, when it was said and done, it was actually $45,000. Fifteen of it, the credit cards never went through to collect the money from. This was twenty-five percent out the window. Then this company helped us arrange the whole campaign, they didn’t even tell us, and I don’t even know how this worked out, but they took twenty-five percent from the forty-five for helping us. The funny thing was, we were told they were going to help us because they were a friend of a friend who has this company for marketing. So anyway, that happened. Then we had to produce all the materials that people were purchasing. People were getting CDs, t-shirts and vinyl. When it was all said and done, we shipped everything out and it was crazy. We spent about $20,000 on shipping, I think it was $19,000, just from shipping. I think we spent about $8,000 on product. When it was done, there was about $7,000 left. [Laughs] Anyway, Relapse came to us and offered us a killer idea. We were literally looking at all of these companies like RED distribution and The Syndicate for doing radio and marketing. We had different PR people in line, basically to sub-contract the work out to people to help do the legwork while we basically micromanage everything. That was our idea. Relapse came to us and said ‘Hey, we’ll put it out and we’re going to be using the same exact companies you’re talking to. We’ll be the machine and we’ll split the profits down the middle with you.’ Our album was already recorded, basically, so it was a win-win situation. We were like ‘Alright.’ We put our name next to it. If you notice there is a logo called ‘Gibtown Music‘. That’s our company. That’s what we were going to call the label, so Relapse put it on there, so basically it was half ours. Speaking of Gibtown, we thought maybe eventually if we could get the machine rolling enough to where there is money laying around to where we could produce other bands because we have our studio, too. So we were thinking ‘Maybe eventually we could put out other bands.’ Maybe, the first band would be in the local area of Tampa or Florida. That was an idea, too, it could possibly turn into that. But with the way the world is, it’s almost turning to the point where you might not even need a label. You need someone to fund it for you so you can press it and distribute it. With Facebook and all social media, it’s so easy to get your name out there.”

OBITUARY‘s new, self-titled album was released on March 17 via Relapse.

OBITUARY will join forces with EXODUS for the “Battle Of The Bays” tour this fall. The co-headlining tour kicks off September 14 in Durham, North Carolina and ends on October 15 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.